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Walking in Waterloo Region
Just to note that the police appear not to be laying any charges in this case, according to 570 News.
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(06-08-2016, 12:22 PM)MidTowner Wrote:
(06-08-2016, 11:24 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Arguably running onto a street without looking, and getting hit by a car is a tragic and completely avoidable scenario for which the pedestrian has no excuse.

Residential streets are bound to have lots of pedestrian-vehicle interactions.  The onus is on ALL parties to pay attention.

I guess “being a child” is not an excuse, but saying that a ten-year-old girl has “no excuse” for an action that led to her being injured seems a bit callous. I think most people recognize that children, being children, sometimes do things that are less than sensible.

I actually brought this up because I consider it to be a good news story (while really hoping that the little girl experiences no lasting impact from the collision) in that we could have been reading about somebody doing 60 (which is of course routine in a 50kpf zone) and striking and killing a child with his car.

I think it’s safe to assume that the driver was not driving excessively fast along this residential street- at less than 50kpm, an adult stands a good chance of dying when struck, so that she has “non-life-threatening injuries” suggests lower speeds. From the limited information, I assume it would have been very difficult for the driver to see around the construction vehicle to see the girl crossing. Fact is, higher speeds do kill, and it's not particularly unusual for kids to sometimes dart into the road- so slow down.

I was just reusing the words ("no excuse" etc) from the previous poster.

A classmate of my 10-year-old niece (in another country, far far away), was hit by a car while cycling across a crosswalk in a semi-rural setting.  He didn't stop or look, and the car that was coming was not able to stop in time.  Much the same situation as the one above -- except that he ended up in intensive care, and took a long time to recover.

In the case of children, the onus is really on the parents to explain to them early about the dangers of traffic, and to teach them the safe ways to cross streets.  Unless we completely ban cars (and motorcycles, and mopeds, and bicycles, and horses, and ...) there is always danger in traffic.  This needs to get drilled into children at an early age.

To repeat my point: everyone has to take care: drivers, cyclists, pedestrians.  Assuming that the other person will do so is foolish and dangerous, and potentially deadly.
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(06-08-2016, 01:13 PM)tomh009 Wrote: In the case of children, the onus is really on the parents to explain to them early about the dangers of traffic, and to teach them the safe ways to cross streets.  Unless we completely ban cars (and motorcycles, and mopeds, and bicycles, and horses, and ...) there is always danger in traffic.  This needs to get drilled into children at an early age.

The fact that it is up to parents to educate children about the dangers of traffic and so on pretty well goes without saying. I think it very much is "drilled into children at an early age." But children, being children, will sometimes do things that are irrational or unpredictable, in spite of their parents' lessons.

There will always be danger in traffic. Sane traffic speeds mitigate the potential impacts.
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Found directly in front of the Waterloo Skatepark on Father David Bauer Drive:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;I'm fun, too!&quot; - Sidewalk, to Skatepark Smile <a href="https://twitter.com/RegionWaterloo">@RegionWaterloo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WaterlooPrk">@WaterlooPrk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WRConnected">@WRConnected</a> <a href="https://t.co/nl3y7llEjl">pic.twitter.com/nl3y7llEjl</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/747089684086591488">June 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
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(06-26-2016, 03:26 PM)Canard Wrote: Found directly in front of the Waterloo Skatepark on Father David Bauer Drive:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;I'm fun, too!&quot; - Sidewalk, to Skatepark Smile <a href="https://twitter.com/RegionWaterloo">@RegionWaterloo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WaterlooPrk">@WaterlooPrk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WRConnected">@WRConnected</a> <a href="https://t.co/nl3y7llEjl">pic.twitter.com/nl3y7llEjl</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/747089684086591488">June 26, 2016</a></blockquote>

Everything's bigger in America:  https://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/new...orne/68934
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Councillor Etherington calling for better sidewalks through Victoria Park (https://franketherington.ca/2016/08/03/p...sidewalks/), why not close Jubilee off in park completely to cars (at least south of Water and north of David)?
 
That part of Jubilee isn’t a high volume city street, although it would disrupt connectivity in that neighbourhood a bit.
 
Jubilee Dr AADT 8000 in 2003
Park at Devon AADT of 7169 in 2007
http://app.kitchener.ca/opendata/xlsx/Tr...lumes.xlsx
 
831 movements are from Theresa, Heins, and Water cutting through the park (or about 415 round trips if assume same travel path out and back). There’s no data point for Jubilee/Courtland at David so it isn’t clear how many additional trips start in that vicinity, but the 415 trips could easily be accommodated on Joseph/Charles/West with minimal trip time added.
 
Thoughts?
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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I walk through parts of the park at least 10-15 times a week ... and I have no issue with cars at the current traffic levels or speeds. I have had zero issues crossing the street, and the automotive traffic neither feels threatening or sounds too noisy. So personally I don't feel there is a need, or a huge benefit, from closing the park to cars.

(Note that even if it were closed to cars, we would still need to allow service vehicles and trucks in that stretch, to supply the Boathouse and all the various festivals.)
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I... I had no idea that the section there was actually called "Jubilee". That's... incredible, because that's yet another name for Park/Courtland/Fairway/Kossuth. This region!

I think it's a bad idea to cut this road off. I personally use it all the time and love the connectivity. Park/Courtland is an excellent alternative to King, when coming from Waterloo back into Kitchener, or vice versa.
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(06-26-2016, 03:26 PM)Canard Wrote: Found directly in front of the Waterloo Skatepark on Father David Bauer Drive:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;I'm fun, too!&quot; - Sidewalk, to Skatepark Smile <a href="https://twitter.com/RegionWaterloo">@RegionWaterloo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WaterlooPrk">@WaterlooPrk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WRConnected">@WRConnected</a> <a href="https://t.co/nl3y7llEjl">pic.twitter.com/nl3y7llEjl</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/747089684086591488">June 26, 2016</a></blockquote>

This is finally fixed, BTW.
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(08-09-2016, 09:15 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I walk through parts of the park at least 10-15 times a week ... and I have no issue with cars at the current traffic levels or speeds.

Conversely I have found cars to go far too fast along Jubilee Drive through the park, particularly at the bend towards Park Street. And it's completely absurd that cars have priority on this street that bisects the city's main park.

Right now with the detour traffic often you need to wait for a car to wave you across, but at least the volume slows the cars down. Before, some cars would just go 50+ km/h through the park and crossing could be quite unpleasant if not dangerous.
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So add a pushbutton signalized crosswalk with no delay at the onset of the request to cross, 15 second crossing time, and a recycle timer of some reasonable amount (30-45 seconds?). Problem solved.
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(08-09-2016, 10:16 PM)Canard Wrote: So add a pushbutton signalized crosswalk with no delay at the onset of the request to cross, 15 second crossing time, and a recycle timer of some reasonable amount (30-45 seconds?).  Problem solved.

Why should there be beg buttons in a public park, it should be the realm of people, not of cars.  The idea that the park is bisected by a street is absurd, and the only reason people argue for it is because it's there now and you're used to it.  You could also create a convenient route by bisecting the park the other way with a road, but nobody's arguing for that because it's silly.

When it comes right down to it, the road isn't necessary, and cars do drive too fast, it's a contentious issue, but it frustrates me how many people support having a road carrying lots of traffic through the park, isn't the park where you go to get away from traffic.
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(08-09-2016, 11:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(08-09-2016, 10:16 PM)Canard Wrote: So add a pushbutton signalized crosswalk with no delay at the onset of the request to cross, 15 second crossing time, and a recycle timer of some reasonable amount (30-45 seconds?).  Problem solved.

Why should there be beg buttons in a public park, it should be the realm of people, not of cars.  The idea that the park is bisected by a street is absurd, and the only reason people argue for it is because it's there now and you're used to it.  You could also create a convenient route by bisecting the park the other way with a road, but nobody's arguing for that because it's silly.

When it comes right down to it, the road isn't necessary, and cars do drive too fast, it's a contentious issue, but it frustrates me how many people support having a road carrying lots of traffic through the park, isn't the park where you go to get away from traffic.

While the road may or may not be necessary, it surely is not absurd.  It provides the connectivity from Park to Courtland, which would otherwise need to detour through Victoria/Joseph/Queen or Victoria/West/Highland/Queen.

If the speeds are a problem (not my experience, but I'll admit that's only anecdotal) then putting a few speed humps on the through-the-park section would address that without having to dead-end or eliminate the road.
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I personally would be against blocking through traffic through the park. It's just too useful a connection.

That said, I'd be entirely in favour of adding pedestrian-priority crossings of the road. One or two standard "Level 1" pedestrian crossings would be perfect. The addition of sidewalks should also help make it seem less like a "parkway".

Honestly, I think Pokemon GO has been one of the greatest things for traffic control in the park. There are countless people crossing Jubilee at the Boathouse now, and the cars seem to be going slower for it.
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(08-10-2016, 11:23 AM)Markster Wrote: Honestly, I think Pokemon GO has been one of the greatest things for traffic control in the park.  There are countless people crossing Jubilee at the Boathouse now, and the cars seem to be going slower for it.

I honestly laughed out loud at that! That's awesome, I guess.
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